Here is my take on it: The SME Series IV is regarded as one of the best tone arms ever made; so it would make sense to me that it would play well with most cartridges out in the market place or people would not compliment how it performs. I guess that is a back door way in to saying it probably will be within the good parameters.
Speaking of the clouds opening and angels singing down to me; I had that exact same experience when I put together my VPI Ares3/super platter table with the SME IV. I had been using a very highly touted vintage Marantz 6300 with the AT15ss (both of which I bought new when I was in college and I thought this TT was just outstanding. When I picked up the Ares3, it came to me with an arm board drilled out for the Dynavector high end tone arm, so I had to put it into my Bridgeport mill and machine a slot for the template of the SME (I just barely made it on HTA as the geometry of the two arms are different). It took me two days of work and fine tuning on the TT base to get the two to fit up; a big issue is the right angle DIN plug which causes a sharp bend in the cables which I had to make a relief cut for.
The long and short of this is that I ended up transferring the AT15ss (with a NOS OEM stylus and about 100 hours use) from the Marantz 6300 over to the Ares3, so this was a true apples to apples comparison of what a TT and tone arm combination arm will do. YIKES!! I could not believe what I was hearing! There were instruments playing on well listened to records I have that I had not heard before. And the soundstage/imagining was like being in a concert hall. I just couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. As noted earlier, the AT15ss is an 8 gram cartridge in an aluminum body MM, It’s in the suggested range of 5 to 16 gms. from SME. I don’t know the other specs on compliance, but it sure does work! I am guessing since that it is in the same family as the ART9, things should be just fine.
Honestly, I had always thought that most of the high end TT/tonearm units out there were for the eye candy appeal more than anything else with a marginal improvement in performance. Was I ever shown the light.....
Speaking of the clouds opening and angels singing down to me; I had that exact same experience when I put together my VPI Ares3/super platter table with the SME IV. I had been using a very highly touted vintage Marantz 6300 with the AT15ss (both of which I bought new when I was in college and I thought this TT was just outstanding. When I picked up the Ares3, it came to me with an arm board drilled out for the Dynavector high end tone arm, so I had to put it into my Bridgeport mill and machine a slot for the template of the SME (I just barely made it on HTA as the geometry of the two arms are different). It took me two days of work and fine tuning on the TT base to get the two to fit up; a big issue is the right angle DIN plug which causes a sharp bend in the cables which I had to make a relief cut for.
The long and short of this is that I ended up transferring the AT15ss (with a NOS OEM stylus and about 100 hours use) from the Marantz 6300 over to the Ares3, so this was a true apples to apples comparison of what a TT and tone arm combination arm will do. YIKES!! I could not believe what I was hearing! There were instruments playing on well listened to records I have that I had not heard before. And the soundstage/imagining was like being in a concert hall. I just couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. As noted earlier, the AT15ss is an 8 gram cartridge in an aluminum body MM, It’s in the suggested range of 5 to 16 gms. from SME. I don’t know the other specs on compliance, but it sure does work! I am guessing since that it is in the same family as the ART9, things should be just fine.
Honestly, I had always thought that most of the high end TT/tonearm units out there were for the eye candy appeal more than anything else with a marginal improvement in performance. Was I ever shown the light.....
